Tomorrow Never Comes
by Era Dubois
Summary: Buffy and Spike contemplate the future. Rated M for language and suggested themes because...Spike. Marked complete for now because the Muse is being a big old meanie.


**_A/N: I own nothing Joss and ME own all. All hail Joss and ME._**

"Geroff!" Buffy raised her eyebrows from her seat next to the thorn in her side.

"What was that?"

"I said...leave." He clumsily kicked out toward her barstool and in the process caused his own to wobble precariously. Her block-heeled leather boot slammed down on the crossbar and steadied her very inebriated mortal enemy.

He grunted into his shot and stared at his lack of reflection.

"So...torturin' didn't go the way ya planned it huh?" She raised her finger and a diet coke appeared.

"Sod off." He was hunched over the bar like a puppy guarding food. A world weary sigh pushed past the Slayer's lips.

"Sorry Spikey but I don't speak Britishisms so your gonna have to speak English when you tell me why you're still on my turf."

His head swung lazily to face her and his body swayed slightly. "Decided it'd be best to kill you."

His eyes narrowed when a small puff of air was expelled through her nostrils implying that his grand plan wasn't even worth a snort. "Nah, I don't buy it. I'd be dead by now. I mean, come on, you couldn't even kill me through negligence."

Spike's brow furrowed as he worked over that. His hand coming up to gently pass over his forehead and down his nose. "What do you mean?"

"You, me, truce? Me with the fighting. You with the leaving."

He took a deep breath and gave a lengthy exhale before answering. "Yeah well that was more about Drusilla than savin' the sodding planet."

Buffy allowed herself a small smile as she took a sip from her drink. "Gee, you figure?"

"'Sides, I'm not running back to her like a trained puppy. Not again. I found her with a Chaos demon! All antlers and slime. Had to throw away those sheets. And I liked those sheets! They were...comfy."

Buffy had to bite back a grin. Comfy and Spike just didn't seem like compatible concepts. But he was talking again before she could do much more thinking on it. God, once you got this

guy started.

"I just feel like I deserve more you know? Just a modicum of respect. A...a morsel. A…" He paused then snapped his fingers. "A crumb. 'S all I want. Don't want the damn cake. Just," He sighed, "just a crumb."

He looked over at the bint who continuously ruined his unlife. "Don't mind any of this. Just Jack and Jim talking. 'Sides, you'll be dead tomorrow," Spike lay his head on his crossed arms, "Kill you right and proper," he took a deep breath that decided to become a yawn and his next words were barely audible, "Soon as I make the world turned rightside up again." All that came after that were nearly silent snores and seeing as he was unconscious Buffy was able to acknowledge that he was emitting some admittedly adorable snuffles every few seconds.

She sighed again as she surveyed the hotel bar at the Sunnydale Motor Inn. No one should have to deal with a hungover Spike especially the barhand at a sleazy place like this. That life's already bleak enough. She gently prodded his arm and was capable of talking him out of the bar using a few of the tricks Xander had mentioned when they had a conversation about overbearing parents. Willows brain of a mom and her own mother seemed like dreams once they got a minor peak into their Xander-shaped friend's homelife.

Once she got Spike to his room and opened the door with the key that she'd found in a pocket with six toothpicks, a broken ballpoint pen and a package of cinnamon wax coated floss Buffy was beginning to wonder how getting her drunken enemy home was included in that Sacred Duty everyone was so happy to harp on. But he couldn't kill her when he was drunk last time he was in town and she doubted it would be fair to stake him when he was sauced. She nudged him onto the cigarette-burnt duvet and he fell back into his deep sleep. Buffy was sure he would be sobered up by morning and baying for her blood by tomorrow evening. It would be a fair fight then and she could introduce him to a Dust Buster without any good guy guilt.

She decided she could wait until tomorrow to stake him.


End file.
